Whatever your belief system, it is crucial to hold the most positive thoughts and images in your mind. Ernest Holmes (1887-1960), the founder of Science of Mind, described “The Law of Mental Equivalents.” He said, basically, that what you hold in consciousness is what you will get in your reality. This has been proven true in a number of fields, as the brain and body take instruction from the thoughts.

Do you ever wonder why some people always cheerfully achieve success, while others are down in mood and fail at many doorsteps of opportunity? Success is very much in your mind. Your thoughts are acted out by your nervous system.

Try this experiment. Find a 10-pound object or a gallon bottle of liquid, and lift it before and after you say these phrases. Ready? Lift the object. Notice how heavy or light it is for you at this moment. Say 10 times, at any speed, “I am a weak and unworthy person.” Your nervous system will take this literally. Now pick up the object again. Notice how much heavier it is? Now reverse the effect. Say 10 times, at any speed, “I am a vital, strong, valuable person.” Pick up the object again. Notice it has become lighter.

Affirm: I am a vital, strong, valuable person.

~ Kebba Buckley Button

Always remember that your brain and nervous system are listening to everything you say. Consider the phenomenon that your brain and nervous system do not know the difference between a real situation of terrible conflict, like a nasty fight or an assault, and a portrayed situation, as in a TV show or movie. When you are in a good mood, go to a movie theater and see any of the currently popular end-of-the human-race movies. You know: Machines are arising or attacking from space, and the situation is impossible. Although not currently in theaters, Independence Day is a great example of this genre.

If you have a blood pressure monitor, take your blood pressure before and after you see this movie. At the end of this movie, you will feel very stressed, your adrenaline will be rushing, and your blood pressure will be up. You may feel hyped up or exhausted, fearful or cranky, and easily startled. Leaving the venue, you may be driving “with a heavy foot.”

Your brain and nervous system thought they were in a real war. If you really want to take in movies like this, but you want less of a stressful effect on yourself, try this. Rent or download them, show them at home, and when you feel your stress building up, look at other objects in the room and think of puppies and babies. Notice your whole body-mind system shifting when you shift your attention.

Do not get sucked into anyone’s negativity, on any subject!

You will pay for it with fatigue and an unclear mind.

~ Kebba Buckley Button

Truly, you choose what stress and negativity you feed your mind and body. Consider an apparently mundane example. Today may be a really hot, humid summer day where you are. It may be so hot that you would prefer to not to be out in that weather. Your passion might be to zip efficiently from your air-conditioned home to your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned office. That’s a healthy strategy! However, we all know people who, on this kind of day, must chant out loud, “Boy is it hot! It is so sticky! Aren’t you hot? How can you wear that? Aren’t you miserable? It’s just miserable!

Chanting like that, the person will begin to feel hotter and hotter, because the brain is listening to every word they say. And if you listen and/or repeat their comments, silently or to others, you will feel hotter also! Do not dismiss this as “just psychological.”

The sensations are real, and you have a right to live the best and most comfortable life that you can construct for yourself. That is the Upbeat Living philosophy. So be ready with several cheerful replies to the heat-chanters, for when they start in. The one I use most is (delivered in a light and cheery tone), “Yes! You know, it’s almost like Phoenix in the summertime!” Then I quickly leave the area so the chanter can’t argue.

Do not get sucked into anyone’s negativity, on any subject! You will pay for the indulgence with fatigue and an unclear mind. If you are a person of faith, remember God wants you to use your creativity to make the most of your life and your gifts. God never wants you to be stalled out by negativity.

So do you want to live your best life now? Great! Then notice negative programming, make notes, and work toward creating the best brain, body, and lifestyle you can. That’s real Upbeat Living, and it’s up to you to choose it!

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within: Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition (http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc). She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Liked this article? You can buy Kebba’s books: just click the links!

If you are even thinking about boredom, you’re bored. Do these words resonate for you: listless, dull, unmotivated? Yup, you’re bored. But wait!

Let’s sort this out a little. Is this a common feeling for you? Do you need change? What are you really experiencing? Do you feel bored on the job, bored at home, or only bored when you’re with certain friends? Then that’s Life’s way of telling you that you need change, in your job or at home. Or you need new friends.

Boredom can actually be a physical malaise. So get your journal out, or your iPad, and start making lists. Try answering these questions about physical stressors:

Am I tired?

Are my clothes too tight?

Am I frustrated about some large thing, like needing to get a project done, and it seems to go on forever?

Do I need a snack/beverage/meal?

Is the air polluted today, or is the weather changing?

Do I have a comfortable chair or couch on which to relax? Do I need to get one?

Have I exercised 20 minutes or more today?

Boredom can be Flat Brain Syndrome, either from working too much or being under-challenged. In either case, a novelty break will do wonders for you. Go for a scenic drive. Go to a movie and then walk around the mall. Visit the zoo or hike the Botanical Garden; take pictures of tiny things and of panoramas. Three hours of change will do wonders for your brain and your attitude.

If you only have a half-hour to work on your boredom, try just taking a hot shower and styling your hair a fresh way.

Boredom is a sure signal that you need something. Or several somethings. Consult with yourself and bring help to your inner Bored Person. Soon your mood, your energy, and your interest in life will be back. You’ll thank yourself later! And please comment on how you have conquered your boredom.

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● If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column. You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Kebba Buckley Button is a Master’s Degree scientist, a minister, and the award-winning author of the 2012 book, Peace Within: Your Peaceful Inner Core (http://tinyurl.com/abd47jr), and also Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). She also has a natural healing and stress management practice and is a celebrated public speaker.

● Your comments are welcome!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

In the previous post, UpBeat Living celebrated the irrepressible, upbeat nature and achievements of Roger Ebert, who sadly passed away on April 4th. Today, we celebrate his final project, Remaking My Voice.

Known primarily as the most authentic and truly blunt film critic to grace our TV screens, Ebert had been a chatty communicator since at least grade school. In first grade, he was told he talked too much. By High School, he was a reporter serving the school newspaper. By age 25, he was working for the Chicago Sun-Times. He continued to work for the Sun-Times in various media until his death. He used his voice for radio, television, and movies.

In what could have been seen as a tragedy, Ebert went on to lose his physical voice in 2006. Cancer surgery made it impossible for him to talk. After an apparently successful operation to rebuild his jaw, Ebert thought he was going back to work in a few weeks. He had pre-taped six weeks of programs. However, one day his carotid artery—the huge artery that runs along the side of the side of the neck, behind the jaw, and up into the brain— burst. His doctor said he had never seen anyone survive a carotid artery rupture. Ebert then spent a year in the hospital and had six more ruptures of the carotid. The team gave up on reconstruction of the jaw. His physical voice was done. Ebert would later write: “[H]uman speech is an ingenious manipulation of our breath, within the sound chamber of our mouth and respiratory system. We need to be able to hold and manipulate that breath, in order to form sounds.” He could no longer do that. But he was still sparkling, animated, and funny.

Now this dynamo simply accelerated into new forms of expression, as well as greatly stepping up his writing via blogs and Twitter. He began “speaking” by keyboarding at a computer that spoke for him. Saying he had always taken for granted the ability to speak, Ebert presented a TED talk in 2011 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNXOVpN8Wgg). Sitting with his wife and three friends, they shared the narrative and Ebert finished with a joke, which he keyboarded into a laptop that spoke for him.

Ebert’s final message to those of us “listening”: “[W]hat you see is not all you get!” To attempt rebuilding his jaw, surgeons had harvested bone from his shoulders, which actually affected not only his shoulder profile, but also the way he walked. Now missing a jaw altogether, Ebert had an unusual face shape. He found that people would stare, and some would assume he was deaf, then shouting to him. Only his physical voice was missing. Through technology, he had found his greater voice, and he could express himself more and better than ever. In his TED talk, Ebert did not talk about gratitude for life as such, but he expressed it, in his lively ebullience and his obvious love for communication, for his wife, and for his friends. This was a man who truly lived.

Roger Ebert: a voice for the ages. Let us continue to hear him and his message.

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● If you enjoy this post, please click “like” in the FB widget in the right hand column. You’ll have our undying gratitude plus a huge rise in your Good Karma.

● Kebba Buckley Button is a Master’s Degree scientist, a minister, and the award-winning author of the 2012 book, Peace Within: Your Peaceful Inner Core (http://tinyurl.com/abd47jr), and also Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br). She also has a natural healing and stress management practice and is a celebrated public speaker.

● Your comments are welcome!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

This column, UpBeat Living, is about celebrating life. It’s about accentuating the positive in our words and attitudes, in our choices of friends, colleagues and projects. It’s about turning any negativity into constructive response. It’s about converting “stress” into worthy choices and forward motion, turning problems into projects.

Today, UpBeat Living celebrates a man who robustly lived a life in forward motion: Roger Ebert. This famous film critic helped define that profession and set standards many are still trying to meet. With his authenticity and ability to make his points clearly and succinctly, Roger Ebert stood alone.

It’s hard for me to remember a time in movie history when Siskel and Ebert were not on the air. I’m sure, during the Silent Movie Days, they were there already, with closed captioning or hand-held signs, giving us their honest and well-considered opinions. Picture them on the silent screen, sitting opposite each other, and holding a sign up with one hand, holding a thumb up or down with the other hand. A piano would be playing in the background, urgently if they were arguing, and lyrically, if the two were in agreement. Today, it’s silence only, for the two great movie critics.

Gene Siskel died in 1999, and Roger Ebert died on April 4th. The two began working together, hosting a PBS TV show, reviewing movies, in 1975– a bit after the days of silent movies– taking it to syndication in 1982. Siskel stayed until 3 weeks before his death. Ebert wept on air in the next episode, as he saluted Siskel and their partnership, then continued forging his creative path.

Whatever stage of life Roger Ebert was in, he went at it with gusto. He began life as a movie critic with the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967 and still wrote for them until his death. He would eventually author 20 books and hundreds of columns, co-create countless television episodes for film reviews, visit Sesame Street a few times, author screenplays, and give a TED talk. Even after he was diagnosed with thyroid and salivary cancer in 2002, he lived with the condition with grace. He kept smiling, and his eyes were bright with passion. After surgery in 2006, he finally lost his jaw, his ability to speak and his ability to eat. Unrecognizable from the square-faced man we had seen for many years, he still seemed to smile all the time, and his eyes danced with joy.

Roger Ebert celebrated his life with his wife, attorney Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert, whom he married in 1992. She has said their life was better than any movie. In recent years, Roger Ebert spoke through his blog, his 800,000-follower Twitter account, and a voice-synthesizing computer. He exuded enthusiasm, wonder, and happiness. Once he lost his physical voice, he wrote and presented a Ted talk about the importance of “voice” on different levels of life (www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNXOVpN8Wgg). So the man who made his name using his voice to talk about films had created his most important work, a film, without using his voice.

My review of his film: Excellent! Two thumbs up. You will long inspire us, Roger!

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● Kebba Buckley Button is a corporate stress management trainer and the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (on Amazon.com at (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), and the 2012 book, Peace Within: Your Peaceful Inner Core (on Amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/abd47jr). She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister.

● Your comments are welcome!

● Get these articles by email– just click the Subscribe Free option in the right column.

What do your words say about you? While words are only part of our communication, they are an important part of our communications toolkit. Obviously, we use our words to reach out to others, to share, and to respond. Our words convey to other people our mood, intention, our gentleness or aggression, encouragement, and even fear, anger and blame. However, we also are affected by our own words. This is profoundly true mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Whatever you say, your brain and nervous system are always listening.

Recently, a segment of a Facebook page drew my attention. Having a fond interchange with a female friend, a 20-year-old female commented, “yah, I miss your a– too!” Why add “your a–” to her expression of affection? Does she think she is being hip and trendy? In her social group, is it more valuable to be vulgar? To those raised in other decades, one didn’t ever mention the posterior. This brings to mind the expression, “get your a– over here!” Why add the posterior portion to this request? Is the asker wanting to sound more aggressive, thinking this is authoritative or powerful? Will the child or employee be more likely to get over there, or likely to get there faster, when spoken to with this wording? Certainly, the demand form of the request to “get over there” suggests impatience, disapproval, perhaps “trouble”.

What would be other forms of the request to come to the speaker? Imagine film star Mae West [1893-1980] for a moment, offering “[H]elloooooo, Sugar! Wouldja like to come up and see me sometime?” Or how about a friendly excited whisper, eagerly asking,”[H]ey! Come over here! You have to see this!” These 2 forms of the request express completely different relationships than the often-used, “[G]et your a– over here!” We can choose the relationships we want with others and use our words and tone to help create those.

Ditto for our relationship with our Self. If we speak harshly or angrily to ourselves, our inner selves respond just as if another person had spoken harshly or angrily to us. It hurts or makes us cringe. Over a period of time, self-bashing language can damage our self-confidence and hold us back greatly. It sometimes gives us a heavy heart, even a dark soul. So why would we continue to speak to ourselves in a negative way? One reason is that we have heard so much criticism, blame, and anger as children. We have effectively stored those emotional language forms over a period of years. We’re good at being negative and it’s easy. There is a lot of cultural support for being negative. Even mild-looking forms of self-trashing are harmful, such as the smiling person who is always saying, “[I]t’s just me messing up again…” or “with my luck…”

But people who speak in a lighthearted, positive way, are more likely to succeed in many ways. They are popular. They are easier to work with and, in organizations, they get the promotions. You can bet these people don’t call themselves, “[Y]ou idiot” or [Y]ou oaf”. If you were one of the light-souled winners, how would you talk to yourself? You would rewrite your internal script to program for worthiness, strength, joy, beauty, effectiveness, love, success, and perhaps elegance and class. You would never badmouth yourself again, because you want all the best for yourself, and you know your whole body/mind/heart/spirit system is listening to everything you say, inside and out.

And as for your posterior? You would never again let anyone order it around. In the life you create with your words, wonderful, positive, classy people come to you.